This does not mean that the concept was not in existence prior to that. Whatever it was called in the Bible, the word ‘marriage’ was not used. Remember that the Bible was translated using the available language of the time. Just because the Bible uses a word, it doesn’t mean it has ownership of that word.

Also, please stop using the “marriage is defined as…” argument. It isn’t the least bit valid. I can give you hundreds of examples of words where the definitions have completely changed. The word “gay” itself is a good example.

While I understand the urge by many people to be accepting of the use of IVF by couples who desperately want to have a child (but for some reason can not), I am definitely against it. And for the same reasons the Church is against it. Primarily, married couples do not have a right to a child – as if a child is an object to be owned or demanded at will. A child is a gift. The child has a right to be conceived out of the conjugal act – an act of love. Not to be conceived by a scientist in a petri dish in a laboratory. The doctor just doesn’t “assist” as you put it. The doctor or scientist here actually conceives the child. The human life is created in the lab…not by the parents.

For anyone struggling to conceive, I would suggest looking into napro-technology and other fertility treatments that truly DO assist in the natural, God-designed process for creating human life. IVF does not do this. IVF abuses our procreative gifts and privilege and goes around the process. It is destructive to the process. These are some of the core reasons the Church is against IVF.

Here’s a snippet of a good answer that might help further:

While the Church’s judgment concerning in-vitro fertilization treatments may appear cruel and unfair, it is not. Children are a gift, not an entitlement. The Church teaches that – [M]arriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child, but only the right to perform those natural acts which are per se ordered to procreation. A true and proper right to a child would be contrary to the child’s dignity and nature. The child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an object of ownership: rather, a child is a gift, “the supreme gift” (58) and the most gratuitous gift of marriage, and is a living testimony of the mutual giving of his parents. For this reason, the child has the right, as already mentioned, to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents; and he also has the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception. (Instruction on Respect for Human Life 8)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also reminds us that – Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization). . . dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that “entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children.” (CCC 2377)

Additionally, the methods used for IVF currently are very problematic anyway. They almost always involve implanting multiple embryos and then actually aborting all but one of them…which of course is immoral all by itself.

As a Catholic, I realize the church’s stance, but as for me I would be o.k. with it if it was for say 1 woman and 1 man who are married, and trying to have children, but for whatever reason it is not naturally occuring. I am okay w/ a doctor assisting in this way if they are using THAT man and woman’s egg and sperm. But, when you get into starting to assist same-sex couples for example who can’t otherwise naturally procreate have kids by use of surrogate mothers, etc that’s when I think the ethical boundaries have been crossed.

Thoughts?

-Ernest

If homosexual couples want join civil unions, whatever, it’s their life. But it’s impossible for them to get married, as surely as it’s impossible for an equialteral triangle to NOT be equiangular.

I think that the word marriage should be removed from our state laws entirely. It has as much of a place there as would a religious law banning the consumption of beef.

I supported wedlock rights, not just the rights of marriage.

Also, the origin of Marriage is as a religious institution. So if we are to understand the definition of it, religion must be a part of the argument. To leave out the “religious” part of it is to take the word we are trying to define out of it’s entire historical context.

And you hold a commonly mistaken understanding of the “separation of Church and State.” I wrote a little bit on this in an old post here if you are interested.